This page is a collection of information, links and resources relating to our "How Do I Have my Say" unit that covers elements of the years 3 and 4 Civics and Citizenship curriculum.
There is also a nine minute video called "Your Vote Matters", aimed at indigenous audiences, but it may be of interest to many people, for instance, teenagers, and possibly new citizens.
There is a useful resource on the ABC website called Discovering Democracy. This is " professional development website which promotes civics and citizenship education in government and non-government schools across Years 4–10."
A very rough outline of some of our lesson sequence (still unfinished) is as follows. Some of these ideas are taken directly from the Decisions unit in the Integrating Socially book by Kath Murdoch and Julie Hamston.
Decisions I make (starting with decisions students are more involved in):
Decision ranking - list five decisions you make and rank them in order of importance
Create a question mark artwork, with a large question mark on some sort of pattern, and including a paragraph written by the student about "the biggest decision they've ever made"
Posters/four corners style exercise where students move around the room and annotate posters that have titles like "power", "responsibility" etc. to see what students know about these concepts.
What do students know about government? Students have a question sheet with five questions like "What do governments do?" "How do governments make decisions" etc. They chop up the sheet into pieces, one question per piece, answer the question to the best of their ability and post it into a box for the question, situated around the room. The followup activity involves groups of students collecting the information for a question, analysing the responses, and reporting back to the class on what people know or think about that question.
Voting role play - each classroom becomes an "electorate" and some parties are invented for students to vote for. A small number of representatives are allocated per party per classroom, and within each classroom, students vote for the candidate that appeals to them. The elected candidates then meet and form a government. This process is related to the Federal government election.
The Parliamentary Education Office has lots of great resources, including:
- Videos about Federation, the three levels of government, making laws, the House of Reps and the Senate on the PEO videos page.
Other really useful videos are from the Australian Electoral Commission, especially:- Counting the Votes - House of Representatives also the YouTube version
- There is also a nine minute video called "Your Vote Matters", aimed at indigenous audiences, but it may be of interest to many people, for instance, teenagers, and possibly new citizens.
There is a useful resource on the ABC website called Discovering Democracy. This is "professional development website which promotes civics and citizenship education in government and non-government schools across Years 4–10."
A very rough outline of some of our lesson sequence (still unfinished) is as follows. Some of these ideas are taken directly from the Decisions unit in the Integrating Socially book by Kath Murdoch and Julie Hamston.
Decisions I make (starting with decisions students are more involved in):
- Decision ranking - list five decisions you make and rank them in order of importance
- Create a question mark artwork, with a large question mark on some sort of pattern, and including a paragraph written by the student about "the biggest decision they've ever made"
Posters/four corners style exercise where students move around the room and annotate posters that have titles like "power", "responsibility" etc. to see what students know about these concepts.What do students know about government? Students have a question sheet with five questions like "What do governments do?" "How do governments make decisions" etc. They chop up the sheet into pieces, one question per piece, answer the question to the best of their ability and post it into a box for the question, situated around the room. The followup activity involves groups of students collecting the information for a question, analysing the responses, and reporting back to the class on what people know or think about that question.
Voting role play - each classroom becomes an "electorate" and some parties are invented for students to vote for. A small number of representatives are allocated per party per classroom, and within each classroom, students vote for the candidate that appeals to them. The elected candidates then meet and form a government. This process is related to the Federal government election.